Pacific Rim ***

The blockbuster movies of 2013 have so far brought a lot of destruction for earth and “Pacific Rim” continues that tradition. This time cities are levelled by massive monsters that are bigger than sky scrapers. The only defence for humanity are an army of giant man made robots, piloted by two people.

Director Guillermo Del Toro takes on the task of putting together the biggest movie of his career. He has directed some amazing films that contained amazing monsters but has never directed anything on this scale. The closest he has come to creating large scale destruction was in “Hellboy 2” with a Elemental Forrest God.

The monsters of “Pacific Rim”, known as Kaiju, are the highlight of this movie. You can tell that Del Toro’s interest was in their creation. They are beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Leave it to a director like Del Toro to not only show us their outsides but to take us deep within their bodies and also supply us with a moment where one gives birth. They engage in city wide battles with the man made robots known as Jaegers.

The Jaeger program is run by Stacker played by Idris Elba. His main pilot is Becket played by Charlie Hunnam. The Jaegers are run by two pilots who must meld their minds together in order to handle the enormous amount of information the Jaegers give out. This is known as drifting and also involves mixing the two pilots memories. This can result in a harrowing effect if one of the pilots is killed during action

The Kaiju are coming from a hole on the bottom of the ocean that leads to another dimension. The story involves the humans race to try and close the hole as more and more Kaiju find their way through.

Now as much as I enjoyed this movie I did find it to be a bit of a step back for Guillermo Del Toro. It does have some of his patented bizarre imagery. I especially liked the moment when a nifty looking Kaiju tongue attempts to lick a helpless scientist. I also loved the look of all the Kaiju and their masters. But I do feel that he has traded some of his creative vision for a lot more action and destruction. The battles take up the last third of the movie, as buildings are crushed, cars flattened and entire city blocks are reduced to rubble. I have seen a lot of this lately.

Still I can’t deny that “Pacific Rim” is a lot of fun. It is also an original story which is refreshing considering the amount of franchise fare that has come out this summer.